Steve Daines was back in Havre during the Hill and Blaine county Lincoln-Reagan Day dinner Sunday, telling local Republicans why he should be the state's next U. S. representative.

He said that last March, flying back from China as the vice president in charge of Asian offices for the Bozeman software company for which he works, he realized he was leaving an area of increasing opportunity and freedom, with a growing economy, and returning to a country where liberty was being restrained, regulations increasing and an economy that was on the ropes, and told his wife, “We have to do something. ”

Daines was in Havre late last year when he had declared himself as a candidate for the U. S. Senate seat held by Democrat Jon Tester. After Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., announced he was running for that seat, Daines said he would run for Rehberg’s seat.

“I’m very much looking forward to Congressman Rehberg’s title change to Senator Rehberg. How about that? ” Daines asked the crowd Sunday.

He told the story of his great-great grandmother, who immigrated to the United States from Norway. After her husband died, she pressed on with their seven children, homesteading east of Conrad.

He said on her headstone in the cemetery east of Conrad, the only words are, “Saved by grace. ”

“She did not place her faith in her government, but in her God, ” Daines said. “She was not asking for anything else from her government but freedom and opportunity. ”

He said he wants to go to Washington to try to stop deficit spending and remove regulations and return liberty to Americans. He said he hears about the needs as he travels Montana.

“(What I hear is) we’re at a precipice, a fork in the road, ” Daines said. “We can head back toward the path of freedom and prosperity or go on to follow the vision of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and become a third-rate nation. ”